Things To Do In SW Florida

Another new property insurer has been approved by Florida regulators to offer coverage in the state — the 11th since the Legislature enacted reforms to shore up insurers’ bottom lines.

Mangrove Property Insurance, based in St. Petersburg, was approved on Jan. 15 by the Office of Insurance Regulation for a certificate of authority to operate within the state, the company announced Monday.

In a news release, the office said the company will offer coverage through licensed independent agents across all of Florida’s 67 counties.

On the same date, the office approved Mangrove’s application to assume up to 81,040 personal residential insurance policies in April from state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state’s so-called “insurer of last resort.”

Thanks to its depopulation program, Citizens’ policy count has declined by more than 400,000 policies since peaking at 1.4 million in September 2023. Customers who are selected for takeout are ineligible to stay with Citizens if any company pledges to renew their policy for a premium that’s within 20% over the projected cost of the Citizens policy. read more

By Holden Lewis, NerdWallet

You plan to keep your house for a long time. But it needs some work. Renovations are expensive, and you want to avoid getting in over your head when you borrow against equity. With that in mind, take an old-timer’s advice on using a variable-rate home equity line of credit: “Don’t borrow a lot, and don’t borrow for long.”

That guidance comes from Lou Barnes, who retired in 2023 after working for 40 years in real estate and mortgage banking. Barnes saw his share of dramatic swings in interest rates. That experience informs his advice for using a home equity line of credit, or HELOC:

Borrow an amount that you can pay off reasonably quickly, then follow through with your rapid repayment plan.

Barnes’s advice has an implication: If you need to get your hands on a chunk of change that will take many years to pay off, consider a fixed-rate home equity loan.

Equity lending described

Let’s step back to explain home equity products, in case you haven’t pondered them lately.

Your equity equals your home’s current value minus the amount you owe on it. You can borrow against this equity, preferably to pay for home repairs, renovations and additions. You have three ways to tap equity: a HELOC, a home equity loan, or a cash-out refinance. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN, Associated Press

A frenzy over an artificial intelligence chatbot made by Chinese tech startup DeepSeek was upending stock markets Monday and fueling debates over the economic and geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China in developing AI technology.

DeepSeek’s AI assistant became the No. 1 downloaded free app on Apple’s iPhone store Monday, propelled by curiosity about the ChatGPT competitor. Part of what’s worrying some U.S. tech industry observers is the idea that the Chinese startup has caught up with the American companies at the forefront of generative AI at a fraction of the cost.

That, if true, calls into question the huge amounts of money U.S. tech companies say they plan to spend on the data centers and computer chips needed to power further AI advancements.

But hype and misconceptions about DeepSeek’s technological advancements also sowed confusion.

“The models they built are fantastic, but they aren’t miracles either,” said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon, who follows the semiconductor industry and was one of several stock analysts describing Wall Street’s reaction as overblown. read more

MSC Cruises plans to expand its footprint at Port Canaveral beginning next year and shift up capacity in 2027 by bringing in what will be its newest World Class ship when it debuts.

The port confirmed a commitment from the line to build on the already-announced debut later this year of MSC Grandiosa’s presence at the port. The ship had been tapped to do the winter season from 2025 into 2026 with seven-night Caribbean sailings. The line announced it would return Grandiosa to the port in late 2026 to begin year-round Caribbean sailings while continuing to sail the MSC Seashore on shorter three- and four-night Bahamas cruises.

That will give the cruise line two ships sailing year-round from the port.

MSC Grandiosa already will become the largest ship from the line to sail from the port when it debuts in December this year. The Meraviglia Plus-class vessel is among the top 20 largest cruise ships worldwide at 181,541 gross tons and a maximum passenger capacity of 6,334. It debuted in 2019 and features a water park, five pools, nine hot tubs, spa, the MSC Yacht Club exclusive area and a Lego partnership in its kids clubs. read more

By CLAIRE SAVAGE, Associated Press

FRESNO, Texas (AP) — The only moment TiAnna Yeldell has to herself is when she’s sleeping, and that doesn’t happen much.

The 44-year-old single mom of three works 80-hour weeks to provide for her children, ages 8, 14, and 18. During the day, she is a driver for Pizza Hut, where she earns $9.50 an hour before tips. At night, she cleans trains for Houston’s Metro system, where she earns about $17 an hour.

The times that she pulls both shifts, Yeldell sleeps for just two to three hours before getting her kids up and ready for school. Then she does it all over again.

Yeldell is among the millions of fast food workers across the U.S. scraping to get by. About two-thirds of them are women, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and many are supporting their families on minimum wages set at the federal government’s floor of $7.25 an hour. Fast food workers are disproportionately Hispanic, making up 24.6% of the industry’s workforce compared with 18.8% of the overall workforce. And more than half of all U.S. fast food workers are 20 or older, “contrary to the myth of it being a teenage job that they just do for pocket money,” said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, an attorney for nonprofit advocacy organization National Employment Law Project. read more